Without wanting to reiterate something that has been said millions of times in the last 4 months or so…. there is no doubt that we are living through challenging times. My heart sinks when I see that people are being made redundant and some companies are finding things tough. While the economy does fluctuate regularly over the years, there certainly did seem to be some good and positive momentum and swell in the UK towards the end of last year, which makes 2020 even harder to deal with.

What I have been focussing on is the notion that storms pass.  Infact, yesterday there was a clap of thunder, a heavy downpour of rain, the wind started to howl and the sky looked particularly grey and angry. 30 minutes later – the clouds cleared, the rain stopped, and the sun made its way back out.

Quite literally, the storm had passed.

Putting that back into the metaphoric context – the storm of 2020 will pass and while it continues to be upon us there is plenty of uncertainty, because we are in unchartered waters, but let’s remember a few things about storms.

  1. They can be scary and chaotic, and we should acknowledge that – we’re in this together.
  2. They cause us to slow down – this is a good thing!
  3. They can make trees take deeper roots – think about loyal friendships, bonds with family, your relationship with yourself.
  4. They help things to grow – growth is critical.
  5. Rainbows often follow
  6. They do not last forever

In the last 3 weeks or so – I have noticed a positive change in the way things feel. The sense of closing down, putting your head in the sand, and hiding away until things get better has begun to lift across the country. The good news stories of resilience and grit are becoming more regular. I see more people taking the bull by the horns and pushing on through in all aspects of their life, acknowledging the chaos and the challenges and starting to make plans to tackle them.

I popped to Waterstones this week and they have taken the challenge on, adapted, made a few tweaks to the store for safety and briefed their brilliant staff well to support shoppers. What seemed like an impossible task a few weeks ago, just took some planning, belief and adapting and ta da…. it’s possible to go to my favourite shop again.

So, it certainly isn’t going to be simple, easy or stress-free but… we adapt, we find agility, we tweak things, we hunt out solutions and then we will have the chance to look back at 2020 and see that some good came out of a very tough and challenging time worldwide.

And without a doubt – my best advice, where possible, is to try your very best, to just keep going.